I can see it in the lines of the book I am reading, near perfect as far as I can tell. Leaves fall from the pages, each passage is dripping in pumpkins, dead leaves, bonfires.

I can taste it in the air, if I try hard enough, on a cloudy August day like today. A certain kind of peculiarity enters the air, a certain kind of mischief.

The wind keeps going, things fly past the house. Almost unnoticable to those who will miss summer. To those who don’t feel the electricity building up, gathering for those perfect Autumn days.

But I feel it, right down bone deep. I know the crisp electric air will soon be here, scarves will be worn, tights, boots, maybe gloves. I know that secrets will be kept, and people held closer, for better or worse.

And noses high, for that Autumn smell no one can identify. Something lost, something like candy floss and popcorn and toffee apples, but better, bigger and riper, on fire.

Ray Bradbury knows.

‘Watching the boys vanish away, Charles Halloway suppressed a sudden urge to run with them, make the pack. He knew what the wind was doing to them, where it was taking them, to all the secret places that were never so secret again in life. Somewhere in him, a shadow turned mournfully over. You had to run with a night like this, so the sadness could not hurt.’